Scientists in Bolivia say that one of the country’s most famous glaciers has almost disappeared as a result of climate change. The Chacaltaya glacier, 5,300m up in the Andes, used to be the world’s highest ski run. But it has been reduced to just a few small pieces of ice.

Many Bolivians on the highland plains, and in two cities, depend on the melting of the glaciers for their water supply during the dry season.

The team of Bolivian scientists started measuring the Chacaltaya glacier in the 1990s. Not long ago they were predicting that it would survive until 2015. But now it seems, the glacier has melted at a much faster rate than they expected.

Edson Ramirez, a scientist who has studied the region for years, says the significance of the melting glaciers goes way beyond tourism.

The World Bank warned earlier in 2009 that many of the Andes’ tropical glaciers will disappear within 20 years. This, the bank said, would both threaten the water supplies of nearly 80 million people living in the region, and jeopardise the future generation of hydropower. Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru depend on that power for about half their electricity.

Related web sites:

• Co-operative Programme on Water and Climate (CPWC)
• IRC - Climate change and the WASH sector

Related news:

• Climate change: a scapegoat for the world’s water woes?, Source Weekly, 28 April 2009
• Asia: water supplies threatened by melting glaciers, Source South Asia, 13 Feb 2009

Source: James Painter, BBC, 12 May 2009

Tags: latin america & caribbean, water resources management